A Cabin in the Woods

In the seminal 1978 American novel, Once A Runner, we read of the protagonist college athlete, Quenton Cassidy, and his dream to run a sub-4 minute mile. In preparation both for this, and a show-down race with an international miler travelling over from New Zealand (loosely based on legendary miler John Walker), Cassidy gives up college and his girlfriend to go and live and train alone in a cabin in the woods for several months. Twice-a-day, every day, and alone, he hits the country roads and the wooded trails, clocking up to twenty-three miles a day. His cabin lies littered with running books, training diaries, empty beer bottles, and countless pairs of damp trainers. At one point, after having a conversation with the kettle and the microwave, he etches on cold glass, in reverse mirror script, 'HELP! IMPRISONED IN FEBRUARY'.

 

                              The Cabin in the Woods

When you think about it, which I am sure you do all the time, we all face the prospect of spending this Christmas in a cabin in the woods. Isolation. Stuck in a house away from many of our dearest family members. Or worse, stuck in the house with our nearest family members, and with nowhere to go....

The Good Lady faces the grim prosect of spending the first Christmas away from her family this year, and forced to spend Christmas day with my family, who prove to be compliantly local to us. My house on Christmas will be like Fawlty Towers. It seems dignified enough at the outset, as a libation is thrust into one's hand, but spend any length of time there, and the middle class veneer melts into the bottomless pit of football commentary, Brexit demagoguery, spilt drinks, and chasing unruly family members round the house with a dog at the heels. As she reflects on what might have been, there will be tears.

For many athletes in Scotland, days over the Christmas holidays are likely to hold as much variety as a BBC News at Ten monologue during the last six months. Get up, spy on the neighbours, watch Dolly Parton's Christmas Concert, make lunch, and then spend the afternoon listening to family members exchange views on "how life has changed!" until our ears begin to bleed.

Or, may I suggest, we can run. We can prize ourselves from the sedentary, head-nodding, smile-inducing, compliment-forcing lethargy, and just get ourselves out the door and on to a country road, and grind out some miles. For those of us who have always longed to know what 100 miles a week feels like, this is your opportunity. For those of us who have always longed to know what 20 miles a week feels like, this is your opportunity.

This Christmas, there is no criss-crossing the country to see your great aunt Beartrice, and gone is the irredeemable tedium of traipsing round shopping malls. The return of competition, and the track season, is surely only round the corner, and how often do you, an athlete, whilst sitting at your virtual study seminar or your virtual work meeting, just ask yourself "I wish I had two weeks to play with to just get some miles in". 

                                                Trails

Like Quenton Cassidy, the isolation this Christmas isolates us from what can often be the distractions and excuses from taking our training to the next level. The shopping, the drinks with friends...etc. We are all stuck in our cabin in the woods this year. There is nowhere to go - but through the hills, the trails and the country roads that surround you - there is everything to achieve.

To my tens of readers, I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Michael Wright, 24 December 2020

Little Moscow: A Review of the Scottish Athletics Invitational 5K

This week I rustled through my sources for some Scottish races to report, but there was nothing. It was like going to the fridge in search of a beer at 4am during a Saturday night soiree with the Hare and Hounds in a student flat. Nada, nothing.

I did ask the Good Lady if she might adorn a Central vest, pin on some numbers, and run a couple of laps of Stirling Castle to provide some content, but the suggestion went down as well as a pair of Karrimor running trainers on Christmas morning.

In the absence of events this week, I have reverted to carrying out a belated review of the Scottish Invitational 5K Event at Lochgelly on 29th November.

Little Moscow

Moscow 

In the not-so-distant past, Lochgelly and surrounding areas used to be termed "Little Moscow" particularly so during the period when the constituency there, astonishingly, returned a Communist MP to the House of Commons from 1935 – 1950. Having agreed to marshall at the race, and travelling through on the day under the gloomy fog that wouldn't lift that morning, it was rather like crossing the Iron Curtain in a John La Carre novel. On approach to 'Fife Cycle Park', I felt that I should have pulled up on the road side outside the venue, flashed my headlights to "Control" (Alex Jackson MBE), and await a similar flash-of-the-headlights response to permit controlled entry under the shadow of the high fencing and dense network of CCTV cameras that consume the place. 

In any event, I parked up, and reported for duty at the command centre. After some light hearted chit chat with those well-kent faces that I hadn't placed eyes on for a number of months, and after a life-affirming nod of the head from Mark Pollard, I headed to my command post to marshal the forthcoming action in the foggy and cold silence.

 

Little Moscow (Lochgelly)

Ladies First 

In the endurance game, and even when one is in form, it can be all too tempting to just let the group do the work in the early stages and sit back. You first, no you, no you, no I insist, you go first. Not so for Annabel Simpson. Fully confident in her ability and her fitness, she dared the field to go with her, and they politely declined. She ran the whole thing solo in 16:28, a paltry 3 seconds off her PB from 2018. It was a clean pair of heels from gun-to-tape, and it was a sight to behold. 

 Annabel Simpson and lots of daylight

Annabel was richly rewarded, as every Scottish Athletics victor is, with an interview with the venerable Peter Jardine, in which she recognised her victory with ease and grace.

In exceptional company, Naomi Lang enjoyed a superb run as she took 2nd in 16:44mins, which was a considerable road 5K PB for her. This was the first race that Naomi ran in 2020, which really brings into focus the torried year we have all endured. Rebecca Johnson in 3rd place in 16:51mins, and Morag Millar in 4th in 16:53, her first run back since giving birth less than six months ago. The rapid return of Morag to training and competition bodes well for her 2021. 

In fifth place was Megan Keith in 17:00mins, a 5K PB for her, and illustrates her comfort, as an U20, in rubbing shoulders against the best women in Scotland.

The Men

The Start

Off the gentlemen went on their five lap course. Near the conclusion of lap one, the charges had already split into two, with the lead pack comprising Ben Greenwood, Kris Jones, Ali Hay, Jamie Crowe, Jonny Glen, James Donald, Ryan Thomson, and Ben Potrykus, all champing at the bit. Into the second lap, and Ben Greenwood was searching for the emergency escape button having perhaps started too keenly.

Into the third lap, and more begin to drop leaving Crowe, Jones, Glen and Donald all to the fore, with Ali Hay, Thomson and Potrykus just behind.

On to the fourth lap, and then there were three: Crowe, Jones and Glen, with just the beginnings of daylight beginning to show between the top two and Jones. Yet again, we see the toe-to-toe fight between the Coe and Ovett of our day; Crowe and Glen.

With his muscular frame, and his bulging calves, it rather looks like Jonny Glen has been assembled in the white heat of a Clyde Shipyard by a squad of lads that smoke forty-a-day, and eat asbestos for breakfast. If King Crowe floats like a butterfly, then Jonny Glen stings like Her Majesty's Type 42-class Destroyer, smashing his way along the tarmacadam road with power and fortitude.

Into the fifth and final lap and the climax of my day out in the Red East. The top three fairly close together, with King Crowe having led the majority. Then with about 45 seconds as they near the final corner, Glen pulled out to the side of Crowe, tested the water, saw that he liked it, and pressed ahead. Crowe didn't let Glen have all his own way and stuck to the back of him like some firmly applied kinesiology tape. However, and into the final home straight, Glen, through what must have been a very solid lockdown, propelled himself away for the big W, and a credit to him for doing so. It was mightily impressive in the fine company he was keeping that day.

 

with around 45secs to go... 

In third place was the indefatigable Kristian Jones who had held with the top two for almost the whole way round. He will no doubt be a bit disappointed that he didn't hold until the home straight, but on any other day, it is likely he would have been right in there at the end. In fourth and fifth was Sean Chalmers and Joe Arthur. Both Chalmers and Arthur paced themselves to perfection, having been back in the chasing group at the start, and come through brilliantly towards the end.

In sixth place was the Peter Pan of Scottish distance running, Ali Hay. As time progresses, he defies the ageing process and continues to quietly distrubute a sombre thrashing to the three generations of athletes that have come after him. How many more generations of 18-20 year olds are going to have to go home, and through a stream of tears, explain to their parents why they got lit up by a dad of two in his mid-30s? Likely many.

Reflection

When driving home West to regale the Good Lady of my day out in the East, I was reminded that our sport is not one of socialist-inspired equal distribution of honour, nor is it one free of class hierarchies. Ours is a sport that adopts pure unadulterated hierarchy. Every performance at Lochgelly, and therefore every person, is measured to within one second of each other (or one one-hundredths of a second if you are fortunate to have Dave Finlayson's expert photo finish team in place). All these people are then put on a public board online, so we are absolutely crystal clear on where everyone sits within our sport; where the winner is, where the loser is, and where everyone else sits precisely in that context.  

We live in a society that too often sanitises the competitive and hierarchial reality of athletics. Let us not lose sight of the fact that, therein, lies the joy of our sport.

On a lighter note, every athlete there that day owes a debt of thanks to Adrian Stott on spearheading the organisation and delivery of the day. Adrian is like Mr Motivator, but without the colourful spandex outfit and the Jamaican ancestry. He was all smiles and positive energy as he tirelessly bounded from point to point on the course (with a pineapple nestled under his arm), ensuring that everyone was safe, well, and looked after in his company. Lochgelly would not have happened without him, and he is a credit to the sport which he dutifully serves.

The Last Lap

After exhaustive research around the dinner tables of the proletariat Scottish Athletics community this week, the decision was reached that the Order of Lenin Award should go to Annabel Simpson. A performance that was as fearless as it was dominant, as majestic as it was inspiring.

 

The Scottish Athletics Short Course: Playing at the Big Boys' Table

Luck Has Nothing to Do With It

In the midst of the COVID summer past, I tried and failed to get the Good Lady to watch The Sopranos, the seminal and rightly acclaimed HBO series centered on the Mafia Boss, Tony Soprano, as he tries to juggle the demands of being the Boss, and a disfunctional family. Within the particular episode that I failed to get the Good Lady to endure, there is a formal poker game which takes place among the gentlemen. The card game is invitation only, and only the best get an invite. There is careful control implemented of who enters and leaves the premises, the game is set within formal surroundings, there is an expectation on standard of behaviour, and there is very much an expectation of a certain standard of performance in the game. Make no mistake; this is the big boy's table. The cigar smoking, brandy drinking, assemblage are at the top of their game, and they are ready to play .

The Short Course last Saturday was the Big Boy's (and Girl's) Table. Only the best men and women got an invite, and in these current exceptional circumstances, that is correct in the opinion of this correspondent. With the lights dimmed, the starter readied, and the competitors circled around the table, they sat ready for the cards to be dealt, and readied themselves to react accordingly.

The dealer for the game - Mark Munro - stood ensconced at the top of a hillside looking down, ready to supervise the action. With the deck in one hand, a Twitter feed in the other, and the weight of British Athletics weighing heavily on his shoulders, our soon-departing CEO of Scottish Athletics could finally breathe a sigh of relief as he saw a return of our beloved cross country.

The Women's Race

When I switched on the coverage for the women's race, and as the camera panned across the front elevation of 19th century Scone Palace, I thought I had mistakenly tuned into some nauseating BBC adaptation of a George Eliot novel...but then the cross country runners came into view, and all was well again.

Under a beautiful low winter sun, and buoyed by what was probably one of the most masterful displays of female front running this writer has seen in the last couple of years last week at Lochgelly, it was unsurprising that Annabell Simpson of Fife AC went hard from the gun, followed almost toe-to-toe by Morag Millar, with those two then being tracked closely by Megan Keith and Naomi Lang. As the race progressed, and keen to join her fellow two Haries - Sarah Calvert - joined in the fun at the front.

The footage provided doesn't permit a close assessment of the proceedings, but at some point, Keith must have gone 'all-in', and thrust away showing the field a clean pair of heels. Regardless of the actions of Keith, this close-knit game was drawn to a premature close. A bit like anticipating a wearied 4am close of your poker game, but the lights then being violently switched on at 3am by your parents, proceedings finished early. With the course measuring at around 2.7K across the majority of GPS devices, the course was short, and presumably many were scrambling to reach the finish line.

 

                                           Annabel and Morag to the fore (Photo by Bobby Gavin)

Irrespective of the premature finish, Keith took a sizable 7 second win. With such a magnificent display it is very difficult to see past her in the U20 race at the National. 2nd was Holly Page with a strong run, having not featured at Lochgelly. Naomi Lang, having finished 2nd at Lochgelly showed superb consistency by placing 4th.

Similar to Lochgelly, and from a team perspective, it was the Haries that showed dominance across the race, placing 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, 12th and 14th. Ignoring the fact that they are a university, Scottish Athletic clubs would be well advised to take instructions from the Haries as to how best to recruit, retain, and encourage women to toe the start line of cross country races.

The Men's Race

As the cards were thrown down, it was beginning to feel like a repeat of Lochgelly with the slender Jamie Crowe and the muscular Jonny Glen meeting each other's early calls. That would have been the case had it not been for the early pressing of Lachlan Oates, who seemed keen to keep the early rounds honest. As these early rounds unfolded, Aidan Thompson and Sean Chalmers sensibly sat back, checking the calls as the early rounds went by.

As the game gradually progressed, Crowe wasn't just taking a call on the cards, but raising at each opportunity. As soon as each corner of the course presented itself, Crowe raised the bets, and through a quick injection of pace, began asking questions of the other players. Corner-by-corner, round-by-round, Crowe raised the stakes thrusting pace and chips into the game, and with the competitors beginning to fold, Crowe was left at the front with a stack of chips.

 

 King Crowe (Photo by Bobby Gavin)

Despite a valiant all-or-nothing play from Chalmers, Crowe took the win and always looked comfortable. To be honest, him losing that race was about as unlikely as meeting Eliud Kipchoge in the queue for the toilets at a warehouse rave in Paisley.

Mention should go to Aidan Thompson; his first race back since The Monument Mile Classic in September, with a 3rd place in that standard of race, is impressive. Also, a tip-of-the-hat to Alex Carcas who looked to have paced his race perfectly sitting near the back in the early stages, before coming through impressively for 5th place, finishing but 2 seconds behind his brother. Sean Chalmers, having finished 4th at Fife, and now 2nd at Scone, needs to find himself a fast flat road 10K after COVID is over, as he is surely in sub-30mins 10K shape now.

The Last Lap caught up with Crowe after the race, and in a moment of honesty confided "I just need a consistent run of races to take advantage of the pubs being closed.". Crowe also confirmed his enthusiasm to defend his title at the forthcoming National in early March, which is encouraging for all who are keen to see that the best athletes that Scotland can produce, compete at the National.

The Fourth Estate

A record of thanks must go to Scottish Athletics to answering the call for some media coverage. For those senior athletes who waited huddled around their laptop with their nearest and dearest awaiting that e-mail invitation 'ping' from Mark Pollard (only to be met with awkward deafening silence), or those stuck inside staring at the four walls of their Tier 4 nightmare, the YouTube coverage provided therapeutic relief for many. For this correspondent, he had a bit more to rely on than just a carrier pigeon and a hotline to the 9th Earl of Mansfield in his drawing room at Scone Palace to establish what was going on his grounds. 

Having the ability to actually watch some cross country for the first time since February was like an ambient emotion tugger, bringing a stream of tears to a glass eye. In a spirit of pat-on-the-back bonhomie, well done to Scottish Athletics, albeit, can we have full-length coverage next time?

On the media point, and with the BBC having hardly any of its own sport to show these days (other than Escape to the Country and Crufts), perhaps Auntie could be pressed to give some coverage of the best athletes in Scotland?

The Last Lap 

I have always adopted a mantra of why use one word, when ten will do, and it is of seldom occasion that I am lost for words. The performance of Morag Millar last Saturday is one such occasion. Against the 25 best elite female runners in Scotland, Morag ran hard, and upgraded herself from 4th place in Lochgelly to a 3rd place on Saturday, some 6 months from giving birth....6 months from giving birth. Just let that sink in for a moment. Words alone won't do justice to it.

 Michael Wright, 9 December 2020